One thing we associate with Joseph Stalin is ultimate power, and how he would stop at
nothing to ensure that his authority over the Soviet Union was absolute. This resulted
in a number of huge scale executions and purges that took place to bring the population into
line and to protect his position. Following the death of Lenin in 1924, the power within
the Communist Party was unclear until Stalin would outmanoeuvre his political opponents
and gain control of the party within a few years. His leadership was accepted, but as
time went on some elements of the party began to become slightly disillusioned by his leadership
following the failures with collectivisation and the limited effectiveness of the First
Five Year Plan.
This created Stalin’s rivals with excuses to attempt to steer the party from Stalin’s
leadership. One way in which he tried to regain control was by authorising a huge and bloody
purge of the population. This resulted in the deaths of its estimated over 1 million
people within the Soviet Union. Today we look at the BRUTAL Executions of Stalin’s Great
Purge. Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
As Stalin rose to power, many members of the Communist party, some former Bolshevik’s
began to doubt his authority and leadership. Stalin thought that anyone with ties to the
government of Lenin and the Bolshevik’s were a viable threat to his leadership, and
for this needed to go. He wished to maintain absolute authority as a dictator, but also
he wanted to enhance his leadership of the communist party and also expel any possible
dissent to his leadership. At the time it was likely that he was looking at European
politics, and that Stalin noticed the dictatorship that Adolf Hitler had quickly instilled into
Nazi Germany.
It’s possible that he even admired the approach Hitler took, instilling a brutal police state
and a culture where any dissent and opposition to the leadership was met with brutal and
bloody reprisals. It’s believed too that he wished to unite the Soviet Union and make
them stronger under his leadership, with no fear of doubting the leader.
The term purge was political slang int he union meaning an expulsion of members of the
political party. In 1933, a purge was ordered of the Communist Party where 400,000 lost
their memberships. However as it went on, the word purge became more associated with
arrest, imprisonment, execution or being sent to the gulags. Stalin began to plot the downfalls
for anyone who dissented against him and the party, and it’s believed he was behind the
assassination of high profile Bolshevik Leader Sergei Kirov.
He was murdered at the party’s HQ, and Stalin following this launched his great purge. He
claimed that he had uncovered a dangerous conspiracy of anti-Stalinist communists. He
believed that these needed to be expelled, sought out and executed and he began targeting
those who were suspected of being dissenters, and many were shot. Amongst those who were
targeted were political leaders, members of the communist party, government officials,
leaders in the army and almost anyone with evidence provided against them.
It was the NKVD who were the main forces who hunted people down during the Great Purge,
and subsequently carried out the arrests, interrogations, torture and executions. Nikolay
Yezhov had become the Head of the NKVD, and it was he who was responsible for the Great
Purge. During his time in power, its claimed that up to 75% of there Supreme Soviet were
stripped of their positions, imprisoned, sent to the gulags or were executed by firing squads.
Show trials took place the first in August 1936 in which members of the communist party
who were rather senior and accused of being critical of Stalin were brought to trial.
The men accused confessed their guilty and these attracted a huge degree of media attention.
These trials to the western world by some were regarded as fair, and Stalin allegedly
promised to spare the defendants, however he broke this promise and ordered the NKVD
to shoot the defendants and most of their family too. More trials took place, in which
many high profile members of the Soviet Union including the ousted head of the NKVD Genrikh
Yagoda were brought to trial and then subsequently arrested.
Stalin didn’t just target political opponents during his Great Purge, it was the everyday
people who also suffered greatly. Districts were ordered to produce lists of criminals
in their areas, and these were then arrested and executed or sent to the gulags. Within
society, the Orthodox clergy were also targeted with over 25,000 members being arrested. Petty
criminals were also executed in barbaric fashion, for example on one Moscow firing range over
20,000 were executed with one third being petty criminals.
The NKVD asked Stalin to boost the numbers of people they could arrest, and Yezhov the
Head of the NKVD did this to gain more favour with him. They increased their quotas, and
more people were rounded up and imprisoned and then executed. The NKVD also targeted
specific nationalities, for example Polish people living within the Union were executed
on mass with allegedly 111,000 executions of them taking place. They made up around
12.5% of the total executions during the Great Purge, and the wives and children of those
arrested and executed also suffered. The small children were placed into orphanages, with
wives being sentenced to a period of 5 or 10 years forced labour. This affected a huge
amount of the population, and the NKVD went after many other nationalities too.
The Red Army and military was not without purges too. 3 of 4 marshals were removed,
along with 13 of 15 army commanders and 8 of 9 admirals. This saw a huge shake up of
the military forces with many of the most experienced generals executed and killed.
50 out of 57 army corp commanders were purged, along with 154 out of 186 division commanders
and all of the army commissars were forged. It was believed at the time that up to 50%
of the Red Army’s officers were purged, being forced from their position, sent to
hard labour of were executed. Many were expelled from the Communist Party, but the number is
accepted mostly today as up to around 7%, but the NKVD targeted the leadership heavily,
and this would be felt as the Second World War broke out, with many of the most experienced
leaders dead or in prison.
Stalin referred to enemies of the people, and saboteurs to describe those he wished
to seek out.
The killing and imprisonment began with political officials, but ended up targeting everyday
civilians, peasants, ethnic minorities, artists, scientists and ordinary people. No-one was
safe, and it was said at the time that everyone feared the knock on the door in the middle
of the night from the NKVD. One of the most brutal elements of the purge was that the
families of those convicted of crimes could be liable for execution, meaning if a father
committed a crime, those as young as 12 could be shot for it too. One of the biggest fear
elements was the Gulag labour camps that many were sent to. Many people wished they had
been shot rather than to face the Gulags, as the imprisonment and labour conditions
inside here were like living under constant torture. Many died inside of the Gulags, and
it’s impossible to estimate how many died because of the disease, starvation, overworking
and execution that occurred at the camps.
The purge targeted much of the well educated class within the Soviet Union, for example
teachers writers and academics were targeted heavily, changing the landscape of culture
in the Soviet Union. Most of the executions followed int he same way, and were done with
ruthless efficiency. The executions were carried out by a firing squad, or by a single executioner
armed with a pistol. A prisoner would be brought into interrogation and then questioned heavily
about their accused anti Stalin beliefs or activities. If they denied anything, then
usually torture was applied in a number of different ways.
The interrogators often beat prisoners black and blue trying to get them to submit, and
they would often utilise other torture methods too. After this, the accused would then be
given an ultimatum. Confess or your family will be brought in for torture and then executed,
and this threat often contained the death of the accused children. Because of this,
the accused would then often confess to anything, and with this the death sentence would be
carried out.
Many local headquarters of the NKVD had execution chambers inside them which were used regularly.
Many of these had been built in a specific way ordered by Yezhov to carry out as many
executions as quick as possible. For example they had sloped floors and running water meaning
that quickly after an execution had taken place, the cell could be cleaned down and
then the next death could take place quickly. Executioners during the Great Purge were known
for ruthless efficiency, and also it was firing squads of the NKVD who carried out these sentences
too.
The NKVD were the ones who were responsible for doing Stalin’s bidding and carrying
out the executions. The last stage of the Great Terror or Purge however focussed on
the NKVD itself. Stalin wanted to make sure that those who knew too much about the Purge
would also be killed to protect himself further. He announced that Fascist elements had taken
over the security forces, which resulted in innocent people being executed. Because of
this he appointed Lavrentiy Beria, as the new Head of the Secret Police at the expense
of Nikolay Yezhov who too was executed. Beria himself orchestrated the former head of the
NKVD Yezhov’s execution and downfall.
The legacy of the Great Purge was a devastating one. Stalin’s acts of terror and torture
forced the Soviet People into submission, and he eliminated large amounts of the population.
It was a clear message to anyone in the Soviet Union to display nothing but upmost loyalty
to him, and to not think anything other than the fact he was a hero and was doing the right
thing. It made his people dependent on the state and upon him, and despite the barbaric
tactics it helped to solidify his strength. By eliminating any possible dissenters, it
limited opposition to him even if its considered today that a large amount of the victims were
in fact innocent. People inside of the Union were even convinced to accuse their neighbours
of dissent and to inform the NKVD and with this huge numbers of people found themselves
accused.
It was what Stalin wanted, absolute control instilled by a reign of terror, and backed
up by the brutal secret police who would carry out his wishes. The official numbers of executions
during the purges remain debatable. It’s estimated that it is between 950,000 and 1.2
muillion of those who were executed and died in the Gulags because of their treatments.
Some estimates even say the number of dead members of society was around 7 million. However
it’s mostly believed today to have resulted in the deaths of around 1.2 million people.
Many of the victims were buried in huge mass graves near to firing ranges and sites of
execution, and still today huge mass graves dating back to the Great Purge are being unearthed.
There are still so many stories from the Great Purge that haven’t been told, with thousands
of unnamed members of the Soviet population buried beneath the ground, the victims of
the NKVD’s brutal execution squads.
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